


and break onetwothreefourfive

by middlemarch



Category: The Office (US)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, F/M, Family History, M/M, Poetry, Post-Apocalypse, Schrute Farms, Vignette
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-22
Updated: 2017-12-22
Packaged: 2019-02-18 15:49:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,017
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13103463
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/middlemarch/pseuds/middlemarch
Summary: They came back. Jim couldn't say they came home.





	and break onetwothreefourfive

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [With Crooked Hands](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18566) by [Annakovsky](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Annakovsky/pseuds/Annakovsky). 



“What’re you doing?” Ryan said. “Everyone’s sitting down to eat.”

Ryan’s voice came from behind him, closer than he would have expected. Not the doorway, not even by the hand-carved chest that looked like it was encrusted with gargoyles and beets in equal measure, all in darkly stained walnut that Dwight could not help running a hand across in almost martial pride whenever he came in the room. Dwight still called it the parlor but it was the den to the rest of them, a gloomy, paneled room with a rarely lit cast-iron stove and dingy lace curtains. No one preferred it, not even Mose, who spent his free time in the hayloft. Jim wasn’t fond of it, who could be, but it was somewhere he could possibly be alone for more than three minutes, so he’d retreated to the dusty shadows and the oil painting of beetle-browed Grossmama Kriemhild’s disgusted glare and hoped for the best. Perhaps he’d gotten it.

“S’okay. I’ll come in a few,” he said, wondering if Ryan would just make an exasperated huff and walk out. 

“There won’t be much left, just beets. Maybe some of that turnip mash,” Ryan said. His voice was still near. Not the way it had been when they were trying to get back, those nights in the dark, but there was something of that in it.

“Yeah, well. I guess I’ll take my chances,” Jim said. Pam wouldn’t let him get away with that. Karen wouldn’t either, though she would have been quicker to cuff him gently across the crown on his head, saying “No, dummy, you won’t. I don’t want to hear your stomach growling all night.”

“You’re reading?” Ryan asked. He was right behind him and Jim imagined, knew? that he could feel the warmth of Ryan’s body nearly pressed against him. 

“Yeah,” Jim replied, keeping the paperback splayed open with his thumb. He was lucky he didn’t wear glasses or contacts, he could easily see the words even in the dim light.

“Poetry? Seriously? Jim, where the hell’d you get that?” There was actual surprise in Ryan’s voice and Jim couldn’t blame him. Dwight’s library ran to farming manuals and 19th century German novels. Ryan’d leaned closer though, close enough to see the words that lay in Jim’s lap and Jim felt the words choking him a little before he spoke.

“Borders. Christ, that almost sounds normal,” Jim said.

“We were at Borders, half-fucking-dead, and you decided to grab a book of poetry to, to, while away the hours?” Ryan exclaimed. It could have sounded a lot angrier, though why it would was another puzzle. Not the kind Stanley liked to solve. The kind they were left with.

“It was dark. It could’ve been that Fifty Shades book, it could’ve been worse,” Jim explained. The book had been within reach and he’d grabbed it, shoving it in the pocket of his coat. Forgetting about it until they got back.

“Poetry,” Ryan repeated, not going near the memory, the allusion to the past and the more distant past, what _could’ve been worse_ could possibly mean. He also laid his hand on Jim’s shoulder and left it there with no reason for it. Jim had done the same thing to Pam, to Karen when they sat at their desks and had looked up at him, cosmetics on their eyelids, their lips. He remembered the feeling of Ryan’s hand; he wasn’t distracted this time by the dull agony of his leg. He glanced back down at the book, started reading, from the end. Not the beginning.

“‘and what i want to know is/ how do you like your blue-eyed boy/ Mister Death’”

He thought he’d been stupid and he didn’t want to see it, kept looking at the page where the words were scattered. Ryan let out a long breath and Jim felt the finest tremor in his hand where it held him. He felt how close it was to the open collar of his sweater, how easy it would be for that hand to slide in, down, for Ryan’s mouth to be against his temple, Jim’s own hand slipping from the book to his thigh. It didn’t make any sense but what did anymore—not the poem, not the half-dead, half-murdered world, where Dwight was king and Andy Bernard was in a fucking grave. And Ryan Howard was what? There wasn’t a word for it and Jim saw the letters in the words on the cheap page, packed together, drawn apart, the start of a new language. Maybe another poem would answer the question.

“I don’t know who wrote that,” Ryan said, very softly. He sounded young and tired, a thousand years old. He’d looked that way when he slept but not when he came. 

“I’ll loan it to you, maybe,” Jim heard himself saying. He’d had no idea what words would come out of his mouth. It was easier to imagine Pam if he told her, how she’d nod and there wouldn’t really even be any jealousy in her eyes, just some sort of weird, fatalistic, almost-motherly acceptance, though she might bite him the next time she kissed his lower lip. Bite him and give him a near-sighted glance that said she wouldn’t forget, even if she didn’t feel it was something to be forgiven. 

“After dinner,” Ryan replied, pressing his hand more firmly against Jim’s shoulder, wrapping his fingers around Jim’s collar-bone, holding him in place and telling him to get up. 

“Okay.” _How do you like your blue-eyed boy how do you like your blue-eyed boy_ Jim heard, tasted the words, tasted blood and Ryan’s come and vodka, licking his lips. Andy Bernard was singing in the garden, a song Jim couldn’t remember the name of, and Ryan didn’t make a sound, didn’t move at all.

_how do you like your blue-eyed boy Mister Death.  
Mister Death_.

 

Pam had saved them some dumplings. They were heavy, she wasn’t a very good cook. But they were soaked in broth and the chicken-fat clung to them, silky. Jim ate them and he didn’t share.

**Author's Note:**

> Emily asked for something more in this universe and I figured I'd try my hand at the pairing she requested. The poem is called [Buffalo Bill's] and is by e.e.cummings. This is a weird and wonderful universe to mess around in, that's for sure.


End file.
